Menu

Modern Man and College Gentrification

Curated by CLAI

MODERN MAN: Because men take longer to finish college and marry later than women, they are more likely to stick around their parents’ house. In 2012, 40% of millennial men (ages 18-31) lived at home. American men earn about 19% more than women.

Adults Age 25-34 Living At Home 1983-2013 (Alyson Hurt/NPR)

COLLEGE GRAD GENTRIFICATION: The more college grads, the more expensive the city, the more gentrification – less crime, better school, better restaurants, bars, museums, and art galleries. College graduates also live in the nicest cities in the country. They’re getting more benefits, even net of fact that they’re paying higher housing costs.

In 1980, a college graduate earned about 38% more than a worker with only a high-school diploma. By 2000, 57%. By 2011, 73%.

Nationwide education gentrification is at the scale of entire cities. Picture low-skilled workers increasingly excluded from Washington and San Francisco and segregated into cities like Toledo or Baton Rouge.

In the past, higher-wage cities attracted more workers, driving up the supply of labor and driving down the high wages that drew them to those cities in the first place, counteracting some of the inequality we see today.

A higher share of college graduates also yielded higher wages for workers without college degrees, likely because employers have to pay them more to keep them in higher-cost cities.